New England's marine economy

Marine aquaculture or "mariculture" is potentially a promising growth industry for New England. To understand the industry's prospects, it is important to see it in context with other industrial sectors that make use of New England's marine resources. Understanding the scale of competing marine resource activities helps us understand some of the hurdles facing mariculture in the region.

New England's most important marine resource is a relatively clean and productive ocean and coastline. In economic terms, the dominant industrial use of this resource is tourism and recreation. New England's tourism industry generates annual revenues in the tens of billions of dollars. There is no good way to separate the contribution of the ocean to this revenue, but in Massachusetts alone, tourism expenditures in coastal counties exceeded $5 billion in 1996. Even if only a fraction of these expenditures are directly attributable to the ocean, the combination of tourism and recreational fishing constitutes by far the largest "marine sector" in Massachusetts, far outpacing commercial fishing and other marine resource uses. (See Figure 1.)

The Massachusetts numbers are generally representative of New England as a whole. Commercial fish landings for the U.S. Gulf of Maine now run about $700 million per year. Marine transportation industries in the region generate some $200 million in annual revenues, and aquaculture generates about $90 million.

Employment statistics paint a similar picture. More than 50,000 of the 81,000-plus marine sector jobs in Massachusetts are attributable to tourism and recreation, according to a 1991 study conducted by William Hogan, Daniel Georgianna and Toby Huff of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth for the Massachusetts Centers of Excellence Corp. These marine sector jobs accounted for about 3 percent of total Massachusetts private sector employment. (See Figure 2.)

Aquaculture industry

Of the world's 1995 aquaculture production of $42 billion, the United States produced only $800 million (roughly equivalent to the value of Gulf of Maine wild-capture or "traditional" fish landings). New England accounted for about one quarter of U.S. aquaculture production, or $150 million, mostly from oysters, and Atlantic salmon and steelhead trout raised in net pens.

Leading northeastern states include Connecticut (1995 production of $61 million, mostly oysters), Maine ($55 million, mostly salmonids), and Massachusetts ($9 million, mostly Quahogs and oysters) (See Figure 3.). About 15 percent of U.S. seafood consumption was supplied from aquaculture in the early 1990s.

There is good reason to be optimistic about the prospects for long-term growth of aquaculture in the United States and in New England. Demand for seafood remains strong, and wildcapture fisheries around the world are at or above sustainable yields. In the wild-capture fisheries of the Gulf of Maine, shellfish (mainly lobster and scallops) have replaced finfish as the most significant contributors to total landed value. Together, lobster and scallops account for well over half of total commercial fish landings in the region; and both lobster and scallops are considered overexploited in New England waters. Although the mismanagement and collapse of groundfish stocks has received extensive news coverage, the effect of these events (while devastating for individual fishermen) is lost in the noise of the overall regional economy

Mariculture challenges

Mariculture ventures require a degree of tenure-the establishment of exclusive rights over part of the ocean. The small size of the mariculture industry in New England puts it at a disadvantage in use conflicts with established nearshore activities, such as recreation, tourism and commercial wild-capture fishing. As a result, mariculture ventures are being driven further offshore, and the access and tenure issues move from state and local waters into federal waters, which begin three miles offshore. While nearshore lease tenure policies for mariculture vary from state to state, they have been the subject of considerable attention for some time. In federal waters, by contrast, these issues are only now beginning to receive attention. There is, as yet, no coordinated policy on aquaculture leases in federal waters.

Other issues such as an apparent lack of available financing can be better addressed when tenure uncertainties are reduced. Several expermental projects in federal waters off Martha's Vineyard-one exploring scallop ranching on the sea floor, the other using so-called "long-line" technology to cultivate blue mussels along rope further out-are exploring these problems and should contribute to their resolution.

How quickly and substantially the New England mariculture industry grows depends in part on how tenure and access issues are resolved, as well as the competitiveness of Nev England seafood farmers vis-a-vis foreign competitors and domestic wild-capture fisheries. There is much room for growth, but even under optimistic scenarios, a lean and competitive mariculture industry is not likely to provide job opportunities for all fishermen displaced by the decline of wild-capture fisheries.

Hauke L. Kite-Powell is a research specialist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Marine Policy Center The author is grateful to Porter Hoagland Denise Jarvinen, and Di Jin of the center for much of the data presented in the article.

Copyright New England Board of Higher Education Spring 1998
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